Style

Points of View

The story is told entirely by an omniscient third party point of view. Since the circumstances and the events of the book are true, the author is obviously the narrator. This person knows the true history of the Mexican people's struggle to rise out of poverty and ignorance, and the suffering they go through in both Mexico and the United States to overcome this situation. These are seen through the poorer Mexican individual's eyes and the experiences related are also of these same people.

The accounts told of these struggles by the immediate families are attained through many years of discussions and interviews with the people who appear in the book. While the dialogue is largely made up through recollections and first-person accounts, it represents the author's impression of the places, events, and characters that appear during the events of the three generations outlined.